by Bryce Campbell, ITA Crew Leader. Bryce was part of  ITA’s three week Wilderness Immersion Project in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness this past summer. Here are some of his thoughts on his experience in the Wilderness.

When reflecting on my ITA immersion experience from this past summer, a quote from The Little Prince came to mind: “C’est le temps que tu as perdu pour ta rose qui fait ta rose si importante”.  The English translation: “It’s the time you spent on your rose that makes your rose so important.”  For me, Idaho trails represent my rose.  For even just the small amount of time that I have spent out in the wonderful Idaho wilderness, they’ve become an ever-increasingly important part of my life.  During this project, and even some others from prior years, we couldn’t fully open the trail and so I always feel this need to get back there to one day have it open and accessible for people to enjoy.  In a way, I guess that’s one part of what keeps me coming back for more.

1. Just getting to BOI

Just getting to BOI proved to be an adventure in and of itself thanks to an airport software update gone haywire. I knew something was wrong from the impressively long immigration line and the derisive “Good luck!” from the immigration officer when it was finally my turn in line. While wandering around the airport to survey the impressively long customer service lines, I was excited to think that I wouldn’t need to worry about some cyber security software updates causing a pulaski or crosscut to suddenly malfunction out in the wilderness. Also, I was super grateful for Alisa rearranging the pickup schedule, for Alex grabbing me some stove fuel, and for Melanie putting us up for the night on our way to Grangeville, and for Dave making us morning breakfast sandwiches.

2. A favorite moment

One fond memory included gradually finding the lost trail around Wylie’s Peak, coming up from Goat Creek and going towards Moose Ridge junction. Having scouted and failed to find most of the trail from our base camp three times previously, we had nearly resigned ourselves to the fact that we’d be doing quite a bit of log hopping and bushwhacking to finally get up to where the tread continued again. On our third attempt, Alisa and I started again from last known good tread and decided to slow down and really try to find a good path. Sure enough, our eyes picked up on hints of the trail: old cut logs, faint pieces of tread, pairs of saplings that seemed to serve as “hiking slalom gates”. We would smoothly leap-frog each other in finding next little hints of the trail and were elated to rediscover where it was hiding. With the remaining time that we had before moving on, we were able to open a little section up and get a solid GPX track. Opening it fully will certainly prove to be a worthy endeavor for future years. 

3. Crazy wind night

Early into the trip, we had been warned about the potential for wind and thunderstorms starting in the late afternoon via Grangeville dispatch, so we made sure to end our day a little early so that we’d be back at camp. Sure enough, late afternoon had come and gone and there had been no rain in sight. Most all of us had finished our dinner and were just enjoying the cool mountain weather. A gentle rain entered the camp along with a little breeze in the trees. Not more than a minute later, the wind turned quite forceful and trees upgraded their swaying to a disconcerting level. Off over by our latrine, we watched a tree get ripped out of the dirt and crash swiftly to the ground. Eyes wide open, I believe the only thoughts in my head were “well, that was pretty impressive” and “I don’t think it would be wise to take shelter from this rain under my tarp now”. Also, at nearly the same time, we came together as a group and started making a run for it down trail. However, we were quickly stopped from going much further down trail by a different tree that had faced the same treatment as the one back at camp. The rain started to turn into hail. We went over to a small grove of younger live trees and huddled down. Almost as quickly as it had started, the storm stopped and we made our way back to camp. Some of the others in the group mentioned how they had bore witness to a large tree that came within a few feet of their tents, so we went to investigate more around camp. Throughout the remainder of the immersion trip, it was intriguing to see the ratio of new trees down from the storm versus trees that had been down long before the storm.

4. Another favorite moment

Picking huckleberries most all day during a work rest day with a brief pause and lunch break under a big ol’ pine tree to watch and wait out a brief rainstorm that cruised by overhead for an hour or so. It all felt very relaxing and peaceful to go with the flow and enjoy all the huckleberries right in front of me.

5. Backcountry meal planning

I tried to keep my meal planning strategy relatively simple. My perspective is that dehydrated backpacking meals always have plenty of carbs (and salt), so I bring those but I also focus on making sure I have enough protein (mainly supplemented from tuna or protein powder) and then also bring olive oil or tahini to bump up calories, as needed based on hunger, and have a yummy and easy to add fat source. Breakfast: oatmeal with soy milk. Unfortunately, I got sick of the oatmeal recipe that I had put together after about a week, so I learned the hard lesson that more breakfast variety is needed for next time!  Thankfully, I was able to pick huckleberries to help choke it down somedays! Lunch: energy bar, tuna pack, mixed nuts- content with that every day. Dinner: dehydrated rice backpacking meal (five different flavoring packets to rotate through) with added protein powder, tuna, olive oil- content with that every day.